Field of the Invention
A connector module includes a hollow generally-rectangular terminal cage body bent from a conductive first metal sheet to form at least one vertical generally rectangular side wall and a pair of end walls, one of the cage walls having a horizontal lower surface defining a first cage sealing surface, and a vertical interior wall surface defining a second cage sealing surface; a horizontal bus bar formed from a conductive second metal sheet and having a relatively broad horizontal top surface defining a horizontal first bus bar sealing surface, and a relatively narrow side surface defining a vertical second bus bar sealing surface; and a securing arrangement for securing one of the bus bar first and second sealing surfaces with the corresponding one of the cage first and second sealing surfaces.
Description of Related Art
For the connection of an electrical conductor to an electrical assembly, connection devices are commonly used in which the insulated end of the electrical conductor is pushed or pulled by means of a spring or a spring-mounted pressure piece against a bus bar. Here, the bus bar is connected or can be connected to the electrical assembly.
Such connection devices are usually produced in a modular design and then they have a terminal cage in which the clamping site is located where the spring or the pressure piece pushes or pulls the conductor end to the bus bar.
Numerous designs are known for the production of such connection modules. The designs differ, for example, in the materials used for the terminal cage, the spring and the bus bar.
Commonly, the terminal cage and the spring are produced so as to form a single part from a material with satisfactory spring properties, for example, from a spring steel, and the bus bar is produced separately from a satisfactorily conductive material, for example, from copper. These construction elements can also be produced separately, wherein, for the terminal cage, optionally a very inexpensive, preferably thin-walled material can be used. Such connection devices with separately produced bus bar are featured, for example, in the German publication No. DE 20 2011 000 714 U1.
It is also known to produce the bus bar and the terminal cage, and optionally also the spring, so as to form a single part. However, in these connection modules, the terminal cage is relatively complicated and for that reason requires a lot of material with a large amount of waste. In addition, satisfactorily conductive material such as copper, for example, is expensive. Moreover, single-part production of a bus bar and a terminal cage requires a large spacing between several connection modules arranged one after the other.
Therefore, the problem of the invention is to provide a connection module in which the terminal cage is indeed made from a satisfactorily conductive material, in particular from a copper-containing metal or from copper, but can nevertheless be produced cost-effectively, and also to provide a direct plug-in terminal with a connection module, a series connection device with several connection modules, and a method for producing the connection module.